Paul Ryan: Ben Carson Deserves ‘Lombardi Trophy’ For Fighting Poverty

Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) says GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson is a champion poverty fighter. Carson responded by proposing a six month hiatus on corporate taxes from overseas in order to jump start the private sector and create more jobs.

“Ben, if we gave out trophies to people who fought against all odds and led by example and showed us how to beat poverty, you would win the Lombardi trophy, which is the greatest trophy of all football,” Paul said to Carson after he discussed what his life was like growing up in poverty with a single mother, but then being able to become a world renowned pediatric neurosurgeon.

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“You did it. You are a beautiful example of overcoming adversity and odds,” Ryan said to Carson during the Jack Kemp Foundation presidential forum on fighting poverty and expanding opportunities in South Carolina on Saturday.

Ryan asked, “Looking at the federal government, what is it that the federal government is doing that is hurting or putting barriers in front of more Ben Carsons of America?”

“I’m not one of those people that thinks the federal government is completely bad, just mostly,” Carson responded with a laugh. “It really kind of started in the 20s with the Wilson administration sort of insulating itself into everybody’s lives.”

“The government saying, we – the government – is going to eliminate poverty, the war on poverty,” Carson added, referencing LBJ in the 1960s, but charging that 19 trillion dollars later, the country has more people on welfare.

“It’s much worse,” Carson said. “That’s not to say the government is evil. It’s just saying that sometimes they over step their boundaries.”

Carson joked of the federal government, “Maybe they should read the Constitution,” saying the preamble says it is one of the duties of government to promote the general welfare, but that didn’t mean putting everyone on welfare.

The real answer to poverty is not government, but the private sector. That’s the reason I’ve indicated that one of the ways to jump start the private sector is to look at that more than 2.1 trillion dollars that’s overseas in terms of corporate money that’s not being brought back because we have the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world. That is absolute craziness. I would suggest a six month hiatus to allow that money to be repatriated with no taxes whatsoever and the process just requiring that 10 percent of it be used in enterprise zones and to create jobs for people who are unemployed and on welfare.

“That would be the biggest stimulus since FDR’s New Deal and it wouldn’t cost the taxpayers one penny,” Carson concluded.